


Green

by unbelievable2



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 06:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2537057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbelievable2/pseuds/unbelievable2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We are all at one with the natural world. Some of us more than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green

**Author's Note:**

> A little something for the 2014 Spook Me ficathon. My choice was "plant" and my prompt was http://i879.photobucket.com/albums/ab353/spook_me/Spook%20Me%20Anything%20Goes/inside_by_Trafial_zps1dd9abbe.jpg

_Scratch, scratch, scratch._

"There it is again," shouted Jim. "That damn thing is hitting the window again! It's driving me bananas here, Sandburg!"

Blair's voice came muffled from his room, where he was shuffling more things around. Probably fussing with the bed again to make it easier for Jim to get into at night, or getting more of his own stuff to move upstairs for the meantime.

"Well, what do you want me to do about it, man. It's a plant, a weed. It's just flailing in the wind a little. Just chill, why don't you?"

"It's a plant where there shouldn't be a plant. I didn't ask for it to grow there, and now it's invading my peace and quiet."

"The only problem with the peace and quiet around here is your grumpy ass," sighed Blair as he came out of what was now serving as Jim's room. He went over to the wheelchair and shook the handles a little. Jim swiped him away.

"Why don't I take you out for a little walk around the block? It might take your mind off things."

"For the millionth time, Sandburg, I am not going out in this wheelchair. Apart from the fact it's pissing with rain outside, you pushing me round the streets of Cascade like a trick-or-treat dummy isn't my idea of fun."

"But you need a little fresh air, Jim," wheedled Blair, slumping on the couch out of reach. "You can't sit out the entire time you're in plaster just hanging around the Loft."

"I can and I will. Jimmy Stewart did, so I can, too."

"What's Jimmy Stewart got to do with it?"

"Rear Window."

"Oh, yeah. But he broke his leg and stuff photographing racing cars, didn't he? Not falling off a roof in a garbage facility, on an insane chase after some teenage perps."

"He would have done, if he'd been a cop. And anyway, I got 'em, didn't I?"

"Only because you fell on them."

"Shut up, Sandburg. I'm not going out. I just want that plant out of my eyeline where it can't scratch at the window-pane and annoy the hell out of me."

"You're not going to shut up about this are you," sighed Blair, resignedly.

"Unlikely."

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know - can't you just pull it down?"

"It'll be growing in the roof guttering, I guess," mused Blair, hauling himself up and going to the rain-streaked balcony window to look out. "Some bird probably dropped the seed there, and it's grown in the cracks. I'm not going up on the roof in this weather, man!"

"This isn't National Geographic, and I don't care how it got there! I just want it to stop scratching at the window. And if you tell me to 'dial it down' one more time, I'll run you over with this goddamn chair!"

Blair gave him a look.

"Yeah? You and whose army? Okay, I pull this thing down, we don't have a fight about you taking your antibiotics."

"I don't like those damn things."

"Well, they can join the long list of things that Jim Ellison doesn't like, and as it happens, I don't like you taking them either, but the Doc was insistent, so we don't have a fight today. Deal?"

Jim shrugged.

"All right, deal."

Blair turned and opened the balcony window. A blast of wet, cold air barrelled into the room, making them both shiver.

"The things I do...." muttered Blair. He went to the edge of the balcony, the wind whipping at his hair, and looked up at the plant. It was a long tendril of something unrecognisable, with bright green pointed leaves and curling offshoots that looked like they were searching for something to cling on to as they snapped back and forth in the gale. He put his hand up.

"Can't reach."

"People keep telling me you're a brilliant academic, so think of something. A chair, maybe?" replied Jim scathingly.

"If I fall off this balcony," grumbled Blair as he stepped back into the room and made for a kitchen stool, "I'll run you down with my own wheelchair."

Jim merely scowled at him, but moments later, the sight of Blair balancing in the wind and rain on the edge of the balcony, perched on the high stool, brought his heart into his mouth.

"Jesus, Chief! Watch it, don't lean too far out!" He swung the wheelchair round so he could negotiate the room with his plastered leg sticking out in front of him, and propelled himself towards the balcony.

"You wanted me to do this," grunted Blair, still reaching for a grip on the plant - he had already pulled off a few side-shoots but hadn't got purchase on the main stem - "so just shut up and let me get on with it!"

"Yeah, well, be careful," grumbled Jim, now somewhat regretting his demand.

"Got it!" shouted Blair suddenly, and then "Ow! This fucking thing has fucking thorns on it!"

He pulled his arm back in a wide arc and the stem of the plant went taut for a moment, and then snapped. Blair flailed, and fell back off the stool, thankfully on the land side of the balcony, with about four feet of vegetation in his hand. He threw it away from him in disgust and inspected his hand.

"Look at this," he said crossly, sticking said hand out at Jim so he could see the red puncture wounds inflicted by the plant's thorns. "The things I do for you, man..."

Jim felt abject, a rare emotion for him and all the more unsettling for it. He was comforted, though, by the fact that Blair brushed his uninjured hand softly over Jim's scalp as he stepped past him into the room, dragging the piece of plant with him. 

"I'm gonna dump this in the trash downstairs right away," continued Blair, walking to the door and still staring at his hand. "And then, man, you are taking your meds."

Jim turned to look at the window. Nothing now flapped and scratched at the glass; he gave a deep sign of contentment, swung the chair round again to face the television and looked for the remote to find something mindless to watch.

++++

 

"Jim, can you pass me that file. Yeah, that one. Thanks. Ow!"

Blair dropped the file Jim had handed him on the table, and rubbed at his hand.

"What's the matter?" asked Jim, frowning.

Blair stared at his hand, and prodded the palm gingerly.

"Where those thorns went in. Still really hurts."

Jim wheeled over to Blair's side of the table.

"It's been three days, Chief. They should be better by now, surely? You sure you disinfected the wounds properly?"

He stretched out and took Blair's injured hand in his own. Blair tried to pull away, but Jim held on.

"Ah, ah, ah, now. Let me have a look."

Jim turned Blair's hand over and peered at the red patches on his friend's palm. He let his sight home in on the injured skin, until he felt he could see the layers of the epidermis, and the pulsing blood through the tiny capillaries underneath. His stroking fingers keyed into the warmth of Blair's skin, but overlying the basic body heat he expected, there was the sinister pulse of some type of infection. He prodded the lesions carefully, and Blair hissed at the discomfort, but Jim couldn't sense any foreign body left in the wound to cause the redness and swelling.

"You want me to bathe this, Chief? I could dial up to really see into these marks if we open them up a little."

Blair pulled his hand away gently, and patted Jim's arm.

"Hey, it'll be fine, big guy. I'll put more antiseptic gel on them later. Don't worry."

Blair smiled at him, and sauntered off into his room. Jim shrugged and made for the remote, but Blair's voice floated out to him. 

"Meds, please."

+++++  
It was in the corner. Some piece must have been left in the corner and it had somehow taken root. He didn't see it at first; there was no wind to make it thresh about in that corner by the bookcase and betray its presence, so it was there, rooting into god-knew-what and growing. He didn’t see it until he was on his own, with Blair at Rainier or somewhere, and he was left alone in the Loft on a rainy Fall afternoon with the skies darkening and sucking all the light away.

He heard it, first; a rustling, the merest hint of movement. He couldn't work it out, and let his eyes prowl restlessly around the room, looking for whatever might be making such an odd sound - too quiet and slow for a rodent, too irregular to be anything mechanical - and with his sight dialled up, he suddenly spotted it. There, in that corner, a little tendril twisted its way slowly across the floor, its tip probing and testing each crevice in the flooring, exploring each direction in turn, questing....

He rolled the chair forward, hardly able to credit what he was seeing. The chair wheels squeaked on the wood floor, and the little tendril suddenly stilled, and lifted up. Its movement made Jim stop short, and he waited a second before he rolled forward again. As soon as he moved, the tendril gave a little jerk, aligning itself towards where Jim sat, and then started to creep again. Now, there was no hesitation; the creeping became faster, until the tendril seemed to be flowing across the floor, and with it came leaves and a thicker stem, and that stem was double, or treble, in width compared with what Blair had pulled off the roof days previously, and its fibres seemed plaited and twisted, and were writhing, themselves, with the motion across the room.

Jim sat frozen in wide-eyed disbelief, and then was hit by the realisation that if he didn’t get out of the way, the plant would reach him, and he knew he didn't want that to happen; _oh no, not that!_ He wheeled the chair backwards and to the side, intending to let the plant slide past him, so he could see what it was after. But at the sound of his movement, the lead tendril merely changed direction again, and the whole plant was now sliding across the floor directly towards him.

Real terror struck Jim, now. He wheeled backwards more swiftly, reversing around the couch and making for the 'phone on the table; the plant sent a tendril shooting out from its side which swiftly curled round the table leg and up over the table top, where it circled the telephone and threaded itself around the receiver. The main stem continued to push forwards, up and over the couch, with more tendrils snaking out and planting themselves in the couch fabric, diving into the seat cushions and suddenly appearing out of the back-panel, little leaves bursting out as they did so.

Jim changed direction, clumsily turning the chair so he could propel himself more quickly forwards, and made for the door. But the plant was ahead of him; another side-shoot had already shot through the kitchen area and along the broad sweep of flooring, rolling from side to side as it did so, serpentine in its motion. As it moved, it sent out more tendrils which made for the wall and the door itself; he saw the Red Heron poster surrounded by shoots which proliferated on its surface like thin blood vessels, and these suddenly burst into leaf, obscuring the coloured image behind them.

Reversing swiftly, he made for Blair's room, slamming into it with his back to open it - but the door didn't shift. Locked? But Blair never locked his room, Jim was using his room...

He twisted his head round in disbelief, and then he saw it; the bright green flash of a tendril sliding out of the lock from the inside and curling up over the handle. He shouted out in fright, his hands gripping the wheels of the chair to push himself away, but to his utter horror found they wouldn't move. He looked down - the wheels were covered in tendrils already, and the main stem was now right in front of him, and it reared up, lurching forward to land in his lap. 

He jerked his hips to try to dislodge it, but tendrils had already fastened it onto the chair's sides, and before his brain could register what was happening, more had twisted round his hands, trapping them on the wheels. Impossible now to prevent the main stem sliding up his chest and round his neck, where it tightened and tightened, and as the breath was squeezed from him, he felt the brush of young leaves and the fresh scent of sap. He opened his mouth to scream and the tendrils dived into the warm, wet, welcoming habitat that was his mouth, and his screams became flowers.  
++++

"Goddammit, Jim, wake up! Please, man, wake up!"

His eyes snapped open and he was awake, the daylight flooding into the Loft through the balcony window. Blair was kneeling on the floor in front of him, his hands holding Jim's wrists down by his sides in the chair, his face creased in concern. Jim gasped, and, realising he could now breathe, took a huge breath, and then another, dragging much-needed oxygen into his lungs. Blair let go of him and sat back on his heels, still looking shocked.

"Jesus, Jim! Are you okay? I thought you were going to throw yourself out of the chair!"

Jim stared back at him. Everything in the Loft seemed to be tinged with green, Blair's face included; his hair glinted with touches of emerald in the daylight. Jim shook his head, and the green faded. He blinked a few times and everything was back to normal.

"What time is it?"

"8.30. You fell asleep in the chair last night and I didn't have the heart to move you. In retrospect, a bad idea. I should have got you onto the futon, like usual."

"Aren't you going into work?"

"It's Sunday, Jim. Man, that was a helluva nightmare you must have had there. What was it, can you remember?"

"No," said Jim quickly, lying through his teeth, "no, I can't."

Blair got up and brushed his hands off on his jeans.

"That's the third bad night in a row. You want some breakfast?"

Jim shook his head vaguely.

"Okay," shrugged Blair, "maybe later, huh? How's the leg feeling today?"

"No more meds," said Jim firmly.

"Normally I’d agree, you know that. But you fell into some nasty-assed shit there, my friend. You need to finish the course, otherwise you don’t get the full protection against all the bugs you probably ingested in that trash. Come on, you did promise."

Jim slumped back in the chair and shut his eyes, not feeling strong enough to debate the matter further. He felt a warmth as Blair leaned over him, and was steeling himself for another medical cross-examination when something brushed across his brow. He opened his eyes, to find Blair's face a hair's breadth away; the other man lifted his head and touched his lips to Jim's forehead once again. Then Blair pulled back a little way, smiling at Jim's shocked expression.

"Boy, you are one grumpy bastard, you know?"

And he moved close to Jim again, and Jim felt Blair's breath on his cheek and on his eyelids, and the feather-light touch of strands of Blair's hair on his face, and he tilted his head one way as Blair tilted his head the other, and they were kissing, kissing, and Blair's fingers were round his neck and in his hair, and Jim's hands were roving over Blair's shoulders and his back, and Jim opened his mouth to Blair's tongue and his world caught fire.

++++

Blair shifted again.

"Are you comfortable there? You can't be comfortable."

Jim pulled him close.

"Most comfortable I've ever been in my life."

He felt Blair's smile against his chest.

"Man," came the murmur, "why did we have to wait for you to break your leg for this to happen?"

Jim grinned.

"Hey, you could have taken a fall anytime, Chief."

"Sonofabitch," came the mild reply. Then, "Think we better get out of here? Rejoin the real world?"

Jim squeezed his hand.

"Not for a year or several...." He stroked Blair's palm, and then paused. "Chief! Is this your bad hand?"

"Both my hands can be very bad indeed," growled Blair, twisting up and propping himself on his elbows to lean over Jim's chest. "Just give them an opportunity!"

Jim pushed him away to grab at his hand again.

"Jerk! I mean the hand that got hurt..."

He pulled Blair's hand from under the covers up to the light, and turned it to inspect the palm, while Blair sighed with resignation.

"It's fine, Jim. Honestly, it is."

And it was. The puncture marks, so angry and pronounced a few days previously, had all but disappeared. There were only the barest traces of them left, soft blueish-green scars on the soft pads beneath Blair's oh-so-clever fingers.

Jim kissed the palm he held and smiled at the man leaning over him.

"Everything about you is fine."

Blair pushed himself away.

"I need some water. Feel like I'm drying up, here."

++++

"You gotta eat something, Chief. You’ve been picking at things for days."

Blair shook his head with a smile, and patted Jim's cheek.

"Not hungry, man. Except for you. Just need some water. I'm thirsty all the time, seems like."

He reached past Jim, stretching over the chair as he reached to open the refrigerator door, and Jim made a grab for his ass. Blair shouted with laughter and twisted out of Jim's grasp, but in trying not to land on Jim's plastered leg, he slipped sideways and landed on the floor beside the chair, his hand caught between the chair seat and the handle.

"Kinda clumsy, Sandburg."

"Screw you," came the amiable reply. Blair righted himself, extricating his hand from the chair. There was a long scratch across his wrist where some of the metalwork had caught the skin, and it was oozing blood. Jim saw the wound and frowned.

"Dammit, Chief, you're hurt. Lemme see?"

Blair snatched his arm away, but not before Jim saw that the droplets in Blair's arm were not red, but bright green. He felt himself grow cold.

"Blair, what the hell is that?"

"Nothing, nothing! Keep your hands to yourself, man!"

Jim reeled at Blair's change of tone.

"Blair! Please!"

Blair dashed up the stairs to his temporary bedroom, hair flying. Jim watched him go in shock, and then looked down at the wheelchair handle where Blair had cut himself. He touched his finger to the damp patch on the metal and lifted his hand to the light, staring at the liquid and concentrating his sight until all he could see were the little corpuscles... No, not corpuscles, but little square cells of starch and fluid, and a green light suffused in them like the light in a spring woodland.

He roared a denial, though of what, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that the man he loved was changing - had already changed, maybe - into something he didn't understand. He looked up to the bedroom and heard the skylight windows being opened.

"Blair! Don't go out on the roof! What are doing? Don't go outside!"

He heard a muffled voice in reply.

"I need the rain! I'm so thirsty! I need the rain!"

And Jim knew he needed to be there, to stop what was happening, though he had no idea how. He wheeled himself to the foot of the stairs and pushed himself out of the chair so that he landed on the bottom treads. Then he twisted so he was on his back and not lying on the plastered leg, and started to haul himself up the stairs, hand over painful hand, with his useless broken limb training behind him.

"Blair! Blair! Talk to me!"

There was no sound from above other than the swish and patter of the rain falling into his bedroom through the open skylights. He reached the top of the stairs, stretching out for the railing so he could haul himself up, and jerked back in shock; the railing was covered in leaves, and was slippery with rain. His eyes stretched wide, he turned fearfully to look fully at the room, and the bed.

Blair lay there, arms outstretched, a blissful smile on his face. Rain was falling heavily now, and his skin glistened with the moisture. From his extended fingers grew tendrils of green which were twisting all around the railings at the head of the bed, and sliding down onto the floor to attach themselves to everything in the room they touched. His thighs and legs were already thick green shoots, with plentiful fresh green leaves sprouting from them, and those shoots grew further and further until they were no longer confined to the bed but had twisted around its frame. As Jim watched, so the leaves grew in size and number until there was little left of Blair to see but his beloved face, lost in its own rapture.

Jim got himself upright somehow, his eyes still fixed on the bed. He managed to speak at last.

"Blair! What do I do? For god’s sake, tell me! What do I do?"

The transformed man on the bed turned his face towards him. Blair smiled.

"Come to me. Grow with me."

The tendrils reached out for him, and pulled him close, and as he sank onto the bed and Blair's limbs closed around him, he saw every shoot erupt in flowers, pure white and blood red, and the scent was overpowering. The tendrils bound him tighter and tighter; he felt the rain seeping into his veins, and Blair bent his head to kiss him. There was nothing left but green...

++++

"No! No!"

"Jim! Wake up! Jesus, stop doing this, will ya?"

And he was awake again, and on the futon. Blair was staring down at him, eyes full of worry and resolve.

"Dammit, I only left you for five minutes. Jim, how're you doing, babe?”

Jim looked up at him, still breathless with fright. Blair stroked his brow, his gentle actions belying the fury in his eyes.

“I’ve just called the doctor. He says they’ve found those antibiotics can cause hallucinations in some patients. He apologised – _apologised!_ I said he’d be lucky if we didn’t sue his ass! We’re changing healthcare professionals, let me tell you. And those meds are going in the trash. Boy, I am so cross with myself. I should have trusted my instincts on this.”

Jim finally trusted himself to speak.

"Thank god you're okay, Blair!"

"Me?" Blair looked surprised. "Why should anything be wrong with me?"

"Nothing... Just..."Jim swallowed. "I dreamt you turned into a plant."

Blair hooted with laughter and jumped off the bed.

"What kind of a plant, Jim?”

Jim shrugged, starting to grin himself a little now at the absurdity. _Hallucination, drugs, explanations - thank god…._

“Tough and stringy, hard to get rid of,” he joked, and was gratified to see an answering grin.

“Boy, those meds really messed with your head, man. Okay, let's get you sorted. Some food, and then some personal hygiene. You’re all wet – soaked with sweat."

Jim lay back on the futon and relaxed. Rational explanations, boy, he loved them. Nothing to worry about now. Blair turned back at the doorway.

"I’m going to get a nice big jug of iced mineral water for you, to help purify your system after all this. It’ll do you good.”

Jim felt warm to his very core with the concern and affection in Blair’s voice, and lifted his head to give him a grateful smile. Blair smiled back, leaning on the doorjamb. The morning light was sneaking in through the big window in the lounge, touching the other man’s body as he stood there. And Jim’s smile froze and died when he saw how the shadows turned Blair’s face into the smooth perfection of carved wood, how Blair’s hair glinted in the sun as though flecked with green leaves.

++++

_Fin_

++++


End file.
